Geo-Engineering in the news

Geo-Engineering literature is widespread in the academic field with papers exploring a wide variety of different techniques within the two main areas of Solar Geo-Engineering and Carbon Dioxide Removal but is there much of a focus in the newspapers and media? This is as important as the academic research in my opinion as the only way Geo-Engineering methods will be adopted is if there is a global consensus to implement them. The best way of achieving this is making the methods widely known using global news channels. By carrying out a quick look at the term ‘climate engineering’ on Google Trends suggests that, between 2004 and present, there has been an increase in interest in this topic.

An article in the Financial Times titled ‘Scientists grapple with geoengineering plans’ shows that geo-engineering is appearing in well-known newspapers. The article provides a concise overview of geo-engineering in the two main forms. Despite initially being pessimistic about the effectiveness of these methods, the article does highlight some promising news. Experiments in Iceland discovered that, when carbon dioxide was pumped into underground volcanic basalt rock, the conversion to solid carbonate minerals took just two years compared to previous estimates of hundreds to thousands of years.  This is promising for the storage of carbon underground as basalt strata is found all around the world. It is encouraging to see a major newspaper write an extensive article on this topic as it helps motivate people to take geo-engineering seriously.

The New York Times has also discussed the idea of climate by design. This article highlights the issues with human directly managing the climate, stating ‘Who gets to set the global thermostat?' This is particularly important for the politics behind geo-engineering and the coming together of many different countries to instigate it. Some countries at higher latitudes may want the global climate to be warmer to boost food production and access shipping routes in the Arctic whereas others may want climate to be cooler to reduce the chance of droughts. This illustrates why is may be extremely difficult to come to a global agreement.  Another important point raised in this article, quoted from Oliver Morton who is a senior editor at The Economist and has written a book titled ‘The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World’ is that that different academics have different views on the time periods that climate change should be addressed and this means that there are many debates surrounding the validity of geo-engineering.

A final article comes from Bloomberg titled ‘Geoengineering to Alter Climate Moves Closer to Reality.’ The article states, ‘A United Nations body is investigating controversial methods to avert runaway climate change by giving humans the go-ahead to re-engineer the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere’. To achieve the climate change reductions agreed during COP21 last December it seems that geo-engineering is needed. This article points out some strong arguments against geo-engineering including the unpredictable consequences, the fact that it can be hazardous and it is costly to implement. It is interesting that this article puts across the most pessimistic view of geo-engineering for the future of the climate.

It is clear to see that there are mixed opinions on geo-engineering methods in the news but the good thing is that it is being increasingly discussed. Many of the articles provide useful information on the different techniques and the issues surrounding them which is positive as it allows people to judge for themselves. It is vitally important that geo-engineering is discussed further in public circles as it could be very beneficial when attempting to deal with climate change.